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Return of the Penn Hills tax hike?

Return of the Penn Hills tax hike?

Last
week’s presentation of the
2020-21 preliminary budget for the Penn Hills School District is not
likely to extend any new year’s cheer for taxpayers. The current property tax millage of 28.66
mills could increase. It might outstrip
the Act
1 index (3.6 percent) if the state grants exceptions for pensions
and special education expenses.

Last
June we wrote a Policy
Brief that detailed the district’s financial recovery plan,
proposed property tax increase and employee furloughs for the 2019-20 budget. At the 11th hour the district was awarded
$3.3 million from the state (the line item in the district’s final
budget is labeled “School Improvement Grants”) and the tax increase
was put off for what officials said at the time would be a year. Since 2013-14
property taxes have increased in five out of six budgets, with three of those
greater than the index. But it’s hard to
envision a scenario where a district constructs new buildings and taxes don’t
go up to pay for them unless the district finds significant savings elsewhere.

Though
the district’s recovery officer stated
in comments that the $3.3 million was a “gift” there was not much
appreciation in his words imploring “the state to step up”. In the preliminary budget state sources
account for $30.7 million (34 percent) of the district’s revenues. That’s a
greater share than other districts receive.

One
has to wonder what becomes of the $3.3 million allocation next year—does it get
“re-gifted”? Go back to the education
budget? Does it go to another
school district in financial recovery? If so, that’s probably little comfort to
taxpayers in other districts around the county and the state that are likely to
see their millage rates go up in 2020-21 as well and those districts are not in
financial recovery.

A real
present to taxpayers in the district would be for the officer, the board and
the administration to work over the next several months to bring down the
expenditure amount from the $92.5 million so that the need for a tax increase
could be eliminated. Or perhaps skip
seeking the exceptions and put the tax increase in front of voters for an up or
down vote. The results of that vote
would speak volumes about where the district is headed.